Transportation facilities such as roads, bridges, and tunnels produce tolls often representing a major source of income for many states and municipalities. The large number of automobiles, trucks, and buses stopping at tollbooths to pay a toll daily can cause significant problems. For example, such facilities may restrict the flow of traffic causing traffic backups and lane changing, often increasing the likelihood of accidents and even more bottlenecks. In addition, many people may be delayed from reaching their destinations, and goods may be delayed from getting to market and millions of gallons of fuel may be wasted as vehicles idle. Environments may experience an increase in pollution as idling and slow moving vehicles emit pollutants (particularly carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide), which may pose a significant health hazard to motorists as well as to tollbooth operators.
Some tollbooth systems may have a program requiring that a motorist rent and then attach to the windshield of the vehicle a radio transponder that communicates via radio frequency with receiver units at tollbooth plazas. However, such programs require drivers to seek out the program and to register for the program. These programs may make it mandatory for a motorist to make a credit card deposit and create an automatic debit account arrangement, which may effectively eliminate drivers with credit problems. These programs also may bill participants based on a minimum amount of travel regardless of the actual amount of travel. Thus, many motorists who travel infrequently travel through the toll road may receive little benefit after investing time and money to participate in the program.
Tollbooth systems typically include a lane transaction system that records each vehicle transaction with the toll facility and an imaging system that takes pictures of each vehicle that passes the toll facility. If the lane transaction system detects a violation, the lane transaction system typically sends a “violation” signal to the imaging system. The imaging system may respond to the “violation” signal by sending the picture associated with the violation transaction to a backend system for vehicle identification and processing. If no “violation” signal is received by the imaging system from the lane transaction system after a picture of a vehicle is taken, the imaging system typically discards the picture. Accordingly, the backend system only receives pictures of vehicles that commit violations. Once a violating vehicle is identified, the backend system typically refers the vehicle to law enforcement and/or attempts to bill or otherwise collect the unpaid toll fees.
In some cases, a tolling system may include a lane transaction system, but not an imaging system. In such cases, it may be undesirable or impractical to integrate an imaging system directly with the lane system. Integration may put the lane system at risk due to increased demand for system resources (especially real-time or near-real-time messaging to the imaging system). System modifications may reduce reliability of a proven system. The cost of integration to a legacy system may be high.